I’m in need of a quick pro-tip:
I would like to share a single laptop with a friend (in a b2b session) but we are using two different keyborad/midi mappings.
How does one easily switch from one map to another, by a simple keypress. I know that Traktor Studio 3 could do it but now I can’t find anything useful except using a heavy modifier layer over everything. Note: layering both maps with modifiers is a really dirty solution and not an option I’d take in consideration.
TL;DR: How to easily swap two key/midi maps for the same device, with a simple keypress.
What controller you guys run Traktor with?
If your controller support midi banks such as midifighters, Livid stuff etc you should be able to set two mappings - one mapping per midi bank.
In other hand, such functionality would requier the usage of modifiers.
The real problem here is, the mapping is for keyboard.
Controllers are pretty simple, Xsession and LaunchControl, they both have A/B layers so that is not an issue here.
You could import both mappings and deactivate the mapping you don´t need.
You need to set the input to none of the controller you don´t need and change it in the settings when you want to use the other mapping.
This is an option in preferences so it would require changing a device settings manually by using mouse clicks. There is some gaming keyboards with this latching layer systems which would do the job, but if you guys really want to continue using what you already have I’m sure that we could merge those two files in to one double layered mapping. It’s basically one button set as a toggle type modifier or we can use any two buttons to change a modifier state directly your User1 or User2 buttons.
I still have some of my keyboard hotkeys which are more then a ten year old
Thanks c0nsul, I know about that feature. And Stewe is right, we are trying to avoid clicks. I mean, just opening a preference window mid-session is a bad practice (I get buffer underruns sometimes).
If only would NI write the low level code do separate multiple keyboards like they do with MIDI.
I think I’m finally inclined to writing that keyboard filter. The one that converts a user-chosen HID keyboard into a midi-input while leaving all the remaining keyboards unmodified.
A very humble suggestion out of the box here but why don’t use something like touchosc if you have an idevice, if you don’t want to invest in a controller, that’s a cheap and VERY convenient and powerful solution.
We have no iDevices, heh. Not even android tablets. Laptop keyboard, XSession and Novation LaunchControl. Unless we split keyboard, there is not many options right now.
I don’t see why the problem here is linking two keyboards by using a modifier. What I also don’t understand is why wouldn’t you simply share your mappings and let it to someone willing to help merge them for ya in to one mapping?
Both user mappings can stay in it’s own mapping device as before so you can easily continue to build on them if that’s considered.
I wouldn’t recommend swapping keyboards to be honest; keyboard input offers no feedback (LEDs mainly) to tell you what mode it is in.
The best you can do if you have to imho is to build an on-off switch in each person’s mapping. You don’t need to merge the mappings to do this. In each person’s mapping, use a key (same key between you two) to toggle a modifier between 0 and 1, and have everything in the first dude’s mapping only be active when the modifier is 0 and set everything in the other dude’s to only be active when it’s 1. You can have both person’s mappings loaded individually (two mapping pages) and not conflicting like this. Traktor initializes all modifiers to be 0, so at startup, one will be enabled and the other is disabled. You can try to set up an indicator in the software to tell you which one is active, like the first person’s mapping has Snap enabled, and the other has Quantize or something; you would be able to tell who’s on by glancing at the screen.
Tbh I prefer using a dedicate controller for all the intricate stuff, the keyboard is my simple backup controller that always works.
Although I agree on the lack of that visual feedback from the keyboard, the number of keys and hardware layers (shift, alt, ctrl) is excellent. Not to mention that my brain is already wired for key positions.
Just for the sake of justifying why I’m tying to avoid “modifiering” everything, here is only my half of keyboard map. keyboard.tsi (121 KB)
Each of the sections is dedicated to one player and directly related to one keyboard area.
Please don’t waste your time by modifying the map for me I know how to do that.
This is more of a exercise on how to do something differently than taking the more easy (but repetitive) route.
The only other thing I can think of is digging into Settings on the fly and manually switching the In-Port and Out-Port settings around in the mappings, which will take a relatively long time live.
I wish NI didn’t encrypt it as well, would make editing so much easier…There IS XtremeMapping if you have a Mac though, the dudes over there seem to have cracked or worked out a way to modify the .tsi’s directly and allow you to blanket map modifiers. Unfortunately I have a PC, so I have to do everything the annoying repetitive way heh.
Although it does access keys on some slightly lower level, Traktor would have to use Raw Input API (on Windows) to be able to differentiate among the USB HID kbds. And there not that much usage of keyboard to justify investing time into this.
Taking Interception and routing all the keys to a virtual MIDI port should be pretty straightforward. Then on the next step some UI with more flexibility would be nice. I did create a project with it but have no time to mess around with midi output.
